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to think everyone knows you don't flush train toilets whilst train is standing in a station?

188 replies

ReignBeauDash · 19/02/2023 18:18

I've had to get multiple long distance trains this last week and on several journeys have had to stand in corridors near the toilets as it's been so busy. For various reasons I've not really used trains in about 20 years!

I honestly thought it was common knowledge that you don't flush train toilets whilst at a station? Or has that changed in the last 20 years?

It's like people are actually waiting for the train to stop moving to get out of their seats and head for the loo - over and over at station after station Confused

OP posts:
celticprincess · 20/02/2023 19:00

Oh and I remember the rule of not going at the station from my childhood but must say it’s been decades since I heard it. No so, not everyone should know!! Younger travellers may have never heard those tales is older folk recall.

Florissant · 20/02/2023 19:04

Years and years ago, there were signs in lavatories warning "Do not flush the toilet when the seas are high" in ocean-going ships.

Gosh. I mangled that sentence.

Hobnob90 · 20/02/2023 19:13

Omg just Google this and watched this 🤢
I literally had no idea.
www.walesonline.co.uk/lifestyle/tv/gross-footage-paddington-station-shows-13803002

DdraigGoch · 20/02/2023 19:32

ReignBeauDash · 20/02/2023 18:39

Some of those lines have been granted an exemption from the ban until the end of 2023 - there are still some passenger trains in service that flush onto tracks 🤢

I'm surprised so many people didn't know it was ever a thing. I did get the train more than most of my friends as a child though - I had a non-driving parent who lived 200 miles away from the age of 2 so I was back and forward on the train a lot for my whole childhood. So it had plenty of opportunity to sink in so far that maybe it can never be deleted from my mind 🤣

Can you find me an example of a train in public service (i.e. not charter stock) in the UK where the toilets aren't fitted with Controlled Emission Tanks? My employer had to lock the toilets on vehicles which had not been converted, coupling them to compliant trains to ensure that a toilet was still available.

Sillyname63 · 20/02/2023 19:34

I remember travelling by train in Europe many years ago and you could actually see the tracks whizzing past through the toilet bowl.😲

Swiftswatch · 20/02/2023 19:37

to think everyone knows you don't flush train toilets whilst train is standing in a station?

If this was the case there would be signs.

shoplifteroftheworld · 20/02/2023 19:39

Gentlemen should please refrain
From flushing toilets while the train
Is standing here at platform number two.
Workers working underneath
Are apt to get it in the teeth.
They wouldn’t like it, nor I think would you.

Gentlemen please be discreet –
Be sure to lift the toilet seat:
The rocking train may make you miss the pan.
Ladies who might follow on
Will get it on their sit-upon
‘Cos they can’t stand and wee-wee like a man.

Piddling while the train is moving
Is another way of proving
That control of eye and hand is sure.
We like our toilets to be neat,
So please don’t pee upon the seat,
Or, even worse, excrete upon the floor.

If the Ladies’ Room be taken,
Do not feel the least forsaken,
Never show the sign of sad defeat.
Try the Gents across the hall,
And if some man has felt the call
He’ll courteously relinquish you his seat.

Honeymooners in the carriage
Do not consummate your marriage
While the train is standing here at Crewe.
To perform your natural function
Kindly wait till Clapham Junction
Where there’s really nothing else to do.

If you simply have to go
When other people are too slow,
There is only one thing you can do.
You’ll just have to take a chance,
Be brave and do it in your pants,
But I’ll forgive you, darling, I love you.

Toomuchtrouble4me · 20/02/2023 19:39

Me too. I was told this as a child and I still don’t use the loo until the train moves.

ReignBeauDash · 20/02/2023 19:41

DdraigGoch · 20/02/2023 19:32

Can you find me an example of a train in public service (i.e. not charter stock) in the UK where the toilets aren't fitted with Controlled Emission Tanks? My employer had to lock the toilets on vehicles which had not been converted, coupling them to compliant trains to ensure that a toilet was still available.

Well no, I can't go and search every train depot in the UK and check their toilets and report back.

However I've linked an article that clearly says 8 rail companies have been granted exemptions from the ban until the end of 2023.

I've also been informed that "slam door toilets" are the ones that still discharge onto the tracks, and I travelled on 2 trains with such toilets in the last week.

Maybe every train company has exceeded expectations and retrofitted their toilets with tanks ahead of their exemption running out... I'd be amazed tbh but you never know!

OP posts:
DdraigGoch · 20/02/2023 20:03

ReignBeauDash · 20/02/2023 19:41

Well no, I can't go and search every train depot in the UK and check their toilets and report back.

However I've linked an article that clearly says 8 rail companies have been granted exemptions from the ban until the end of 2023.

I've also been informed that "slam door toilets" are the ones that still discharge onto the tracks, and I travelled on 2 trains with such toilets in the last week.

Maybe every train company has exceeded expectations and retrofitted their toilets with tanks ahead of their exemption running out... I'd be amazed tbh but you never know!

Was the flush operated by an electronic button? If so then it was a vacuum-operated toilet feeding into a retention tank. If it was a toilet that discharged onto the track then it would have had some kind of lever or a manual button sending a raging torrent of water into the toilet bowl.

Where are you getting that there are exemptions until 2023? The very link you provided didn't contradict what I said that the practice ended in December 2020.

TheSpottedZebra · 20/02/2023 20:10

Blimey, i was today years old when i learnt that trains used to /some still do just dump (!) effluent.

So not flushing at a station just meant no big build up that could be easily cleaned? They preferred it to be more fairly and evenly distributed?

elevenplusdilemma · 20/02/2023 20:13

TheSpottedZebra · 20/02/2023 20:10

Blimey, i was today years old when i learnt that trains used to /some still do just dump (!) effluent.

So not flushing at a station just meant no big build up that could be easily cleaned? They preferred it to be more fairly and evenly distributed?

Yes. And the fact that it's rather unpleasant to be stood on a railway platform looking at piles of poo and paper on the track below.

DdraigGoch · 20/02/2023 20:14

So not flushing at a station just meant no big build up that could be easily cleaned? They preferred it to be more fairly and evenly distributed?

At speed it would disperse over a wide area, ideally out of sight out of mind.

Mandyjack · 20/02/2023 20:25

Xrays · 19/02/2023 18:19

They have tanks now. You don’t see piles of turds and toilet paper on the lines do you? 😁

I thought they still emptied on the track or maybe for older trains they do?

NotDavidTennant · 20/02/2023 20:35

I commute on Transport For Wales trains and can assure you that none of their toilets flush onto the tracks anymore and haven't done for a couple of years.

Catinabeanbag · 20/02/2023 21:14

I remember travelling by train in Europe many years ago and you could actually see the tracks whizzing past through the toilet bowl.😲

Yep... we took the Aix-les-Bains to Annecy train in 2006 and this was the case. I've travelled in Europe by train a lot since, and never seen it anywhere else.

user1471447863 · 20/02/2023 21:38

Who actually goes for a shit on a train? I mean it's one of the last places i'd choose to go - it's dangerous enough going for a pee. Hit a wobbly bit of line and that logs going to swirl out the pan and land on the floor/in your lap.

Motorina · 20/02/2023 21:59
CalloohCallayFrabjousDay · 20/02/2023 23:15

@KindlyKanga I know someone whose conservatory was wrecked by a frozen blue lump of plane waste! They had the common sense to wrap it and stick it in their freezer so they had proof.

DonnaBanana · 21/02/2023 00:02

Not a problem with trains nowadays but this is one reason why the toilets on planes are locked when taxiing and taking off landing etc. When you go at 35000ft it has frozen or dispersed by the time it hits the ocean

Btjdkfnn · 21/02/2023 00:04

There are so many things in life that people are just expected to know. There needs to be a clear sign on the bog if this isn't OK.

JunkinDonuts · 21/02/2023 01:08

I've often wondered what happens to the toilet waste on a ferry or a cruise ship.
Does it flush straight out into the sea or what?

MrsAvocet · 21/02/2023 01:56

Small boats, like private yachts, often discharge their waste directly into the sea but I believe cruise ships generally have on board sewage plants that treat it before it is discharged (I'm not sure exactly how though.) Given that the biggest cruise ships now have 8 or 9 thousand people on board it would be pretty irresponsible to discharge that amount of raw sewage every day so hopefully that doesn't happen!

Itsnoteasybeing · 21/02/2023 08:04

We walk across a level crossing next to a station every day on the school run. We have had to tiptoe past piles of loo roll many times. So gross! Although in saying that I’ve not seen any piles for a while and there have been some new trains introduced on the line, so maybe problem has been solved. I hope so!

Mothership4two · 21/02/2023 08:16

DonnaBanana · 21/02/2023 00:02

Not a problem with trains nowadays but this is one reason why the toilets on planes are locked when taxiing and taking off landing etc. When you go at 35000ft it has frozen or dispersed by the time it hits the ocean

Airplanes don't jettison sewage. However fallen blue ice is probably from a leak in the toilet waste system.

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